The garage is lined with meticulously
indexed old magazines, vinyl records,
World War II artifacts, rare stamps,
VHS tapes and vintage fishing rods.
A Hermes 3000 typewriter, framed
oil paintings, ancient Chinese vases.

---

He told me about a unit
in Hackensack that had belonged
to a socialite. It was heaped
with trash bags containing Prada
dresses, Hermès scarves and jewelry.
There were also empty vodka
bottles, divorce papers and
distressing financial documents.

---

One evening in 1985,
Mr. Crispo and a gallery assistant
picked up a Norwegian art student named
Eigil Dag Vesti. After a drug-fueled night,
Mr. Vesti was shot dead while naked
and handcuffed. Three weeks later, hikers
discovered his corpse in a smokehouse,
a zipped leather hood over the head.

Mr. Crispo died destitute in 2024
in a Brooklyn nursing facility,
causing his storage unit to go delinquent.

Michael sold a Man Ray painting
and some Walt Kuhn drawings he found
inside for nearly $50,000.

---

Its contents seemed routine at first —
tool boxes, hammer holsters, saws,
drills, some Spanish-language comic books.
But deep within the clutter, in a tattered
box, Michael found a Purple Heart.

The address brought him to a home
with a rusted white fence in an
immigrant enclave of Union City.
A pair of dust-caked Timberland
boots sat by the entrance. No one
answered Michael’s knocks at the door.
No one answered his calls after he pulled
a phone number through public records.
Then he sent a letter. He is
still waiting to hear back.

---

People’s lives are in these lockers.
Belongings can tell you a lot
about a person. When you meet
someone, you might think you know them,
but you just don’t.

From A New Jersey Teen Finds Treasure, and More, in Abandoned Storage Units.

At precisely nine in the morning,
working with focus and stealth,
our entire membership succeeded
in simultaneously beheading no one.

We set, on roads in every city,
in every nation in the world, a total of zero
roadside bombs which, not being there,
did not subsequently explode,
killing or maiming a total of nobody.

Also, none of us blew himself or herself up
in a crowded public place.

No bombs were dropped, during
the lazy afternoon hours,
on crowded civilian neighborhoods.

No stun guns, rubber batons, rubber bullets,
tear gas, or bullets were used.
No one was forced to don a hood.
No teeth were pulled in darkened rooms.
No drills were used on human flesh,
nor were whips or flames. No one
was reduced to hysterical tears
via a series of blows to the head or body.

In addition, zero planes were flown into buildings.

Since the world began,
we have gone about our work quietly,
resisting the urge to generalize,
valuing the individual over the group,
the actual over the conceptual,
the inherent sweetness of the present
over the theoretically peaceful future
to be obtained via murder.

To tell the truth, we are tired. We work.
We would just like some peace and quiet.
We stand under awnings during urban
thunderstorms, moved to thoughtfulness
by the troubled, umbrella-tinged faces rushing by.

We are many. We are worldwide.
Though you are louder, though you create
a momentary ripple on the water of life,
we will endure, and prevail.

A Press Release from People Reluctant to Kill for an Abstraction, 26 August 2004.